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Thor: Ragnarok Cut Callback to The Avengers’ Hulk/Loki Scene

Thor: Ragnarok almost featured a scene referencing Hulk's two big comedic moments from The Avengers. While Hulk's role in Avengers: Age of Ultron was designed to ramp up the drama and spectacle of the character, Mark Ruffalo debuted his take on the character as something of a comic presence. As such, Hulk's inclusion in Taika Waititi's more absurdist take on the Thor franchise seemed like an opportunity for lots of laughs.

Like the God of Thunder, Hulk is a character so powerful and unstoppable that some comedy and hubris can help make him more relatable. Bruce Banner usually supplies the hubris, but Thor: Ragnarok proves a talking Hulk is good for lots of laughs. Of course, The Avengers showed that even without words, Hulk could leave the audience in stitches. And with just a limited vocabulary, he could deliver one of the MCU's most memorable moments.

Empire spoke with Waititi about Thor: Ragnarok and the director didn't hesitate to reveal a funny Hulk moment that was left on the cutting room floor. In an attempt to reference both of Hulk's big moments from The Avengers, Waititi envisioned the perfect mash-up of Hulk punching Thor and savaging Loki.

“They all land on the bridge — Thor, Loki and then Hulk. They stand for a second. Then Hulk just smashes Loki, punches him out of the frame — just like in Avengers, when Hulk did it to Thor. It was a crowd favourite, but we just had to get rid of it for time. It might be on the DVD.”

While a nod to the "Puny god" line seems obvious, the more understated moment of Hulk quietly punching Thor off the screen fits more in line with Waititi's sensibilities. Sadly, the moment was one of many cut from the movie. In fact, the whole team lining up on the bridge wasn't even in the film after featuring heavily in the marketing.

Along with the Hulk and Loki moment, Waititi recently revealed he cut a scene of Odin on Earth. In doing so, he actually had to reshoot Hela's destruction of Mjolnir, another big moment from the earliest trailers. Still, as Waititi states, these could easily end up on the home video release of the film.